thedwork

giant/interesting subject menace. it reminds me of the first part of a 'book' review i did back in june of 2009: Grant Alden and Peter Blackstock co-founded No Depression magazine back in 1995. Alden spoke in 2008 on NPR about long form music writing not translating so well to the internet. He wondered whether readers would bother to turn the 'virtual page.' "The problem I have with the Web is it doesn't seem like a good home for a 10,000 word story on Little Miss Cornshucks... I don't think the reading experience works," he said. "And I don't know where that story gets told if magazines like ours can't survive." Whether or not long form writing 'works' on the Web is a debate that won't have any decisive closure any time soon. But at the very least, most can acknowledge that reading a 10,000 word piece on the Web at your desktop is a different experience than reading the same piece sitting on a park bench holding a magazine or book. Or holding a 'bookazine' (whatever that is). Well, "whatever that is" is what Alden and Blackstock call the latest incarnation of No Depression. Their old magazine got swallowed up by our currently print-hostile era. In this modern McWorld where the average music listener's attention span is about as long as their most recently downloaded ringtone, the average reader's attention span may be following suit. Why read/write 5,000 words when you can read/write 500? Somehow, the idea of "faster/more" has become almost universally equated with "better" without any consideration beyond theaspects of speed and volume. It seems an offshoot of (dare I say it?) a Capitalist mentality: more more more. Always be growing and consuming. If you don't make more this year than you did last year, you're a failure. Profit in volume. Don't give me one relatively in depth 1,000 word article when I can sell ten 100 word blips for more profit. Don't give me one 100 word blip when I can sell ten 10 word sentences. We have fast food, faster computers, the iPhone has everything 'now,' even faster wars (or so the puppet masters would have us believe: "Mission Accomplished"). And you see it on the nightly network McNews in the shrinking length of their stories. An "In Depth" report from CBS lasts all of a couple minutes and their following coverage of the previous day's annual G8 summit may last 30 seconds. It's information... kind of. But it's devoid of any real context. We are confusing knowing "of" something with really knowing "about" anything. Brooks Hatlen got it right when he left Shawshank prison observing, "I can't believe how fast things move on the outside... The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry." It's no coincidence that Brooks was the prison librarian. full(er) review here i'm going to bed 'cuz it's late and i'm tired. just wanted to put this up to start. i'll be checking in again. good stuff menace...

again: mark turner on live video stream from small's right now...

Adbusters: Journal Of The Mental Environment (Zine Home) cultural commentary magazine w/ articles and very interesting artwork. certainly not for everyone. sample cover image: the "adbusters flag":

does he use the word repeatedly w/ the same spelling? if so, knowing the context of its usage is an obvious necessity to figure out/guess at his reasoning. any chance of putting up a couple examples of his contexts msb59? i suppose it's possible that it's a misspelling, but i'd highly doubt it could be one of those innane intentional misspellings (kool, phat, etc etc etc...) to show one's "originality." i can't imagine Braxton would do anything like that. but, to be honest, while i have nothing but respect for the man and his music, his verbal explanations of countless things (including his music) often rub me the wrong way. admittedly this is mostly based on my reading of Forces In Motion and very limited exposure to the TAW (i had a rather extensive clip saved onto my desktop a while back). for me, he is in the same category as ornette in this respect: undeniably brilliant musician, but frustratingly obfuscatory verbally - seemingly to the point of intent. i can dig a nice koan as much as the next frustrated american and i have nothing against coming up w/ an occasional new word if it helps to get your point across. but it seems to me that with these two master musicians, their use of language tends toward shrouding instead of illumination. it can certainly be awesome to be original and it's perfectly cool to be eccentric, esoteric, to follow your own path, etc etc etc... but imo sometimes an artist's simple inability to express oneself verbally can be interpreted as "artistic" or "so deep we can't fathom its meaning" by those who wish to see them as nothing but a brilliant genius in all contexts. i trust in their music 1st

great leeway just today i added two little sections at the bottom of the list of cds in the OP: books and dvds i've decided to throw into the mix. check 'em out!

That's not right. Blade's Fellowship band released Season Of Changes a couple years ago. personally i think it's not as good as the band's previous two recordings but it's still an excellent record. in my mind the previous two are both classics and it's difficult to keep it at a level that high for too long in terms of recordings. it's another story live: i have no doubt that they are spectacular to see every night they play. i don't have Mama Rose yet but i've heard it's more in the singer/songwriter vein and will eventually get my hands on it.

very interesting. like someone said above i also don't see how it will be enforcable. there's so many ways around it. more than anything else though, the phony reviews that make me pissed off are the MOVIE reviews you see the pull quotes from for the most obviously shitty films: "Best feel good movie of he year!," says jo blo from the globglob post in east buckfuck minnesota. "Bring the whole family!," writes evalyn lyinass on channel 13 11pm news nowheresville. just nonsense...

bought this vinyl a few weeks ago and am just starting to listen: "Duran" has a killer milesian funk/rock groove goin' on (Cobham!) and McLaughlin is killin' in somewhat of a Hendrix mode. and i've never heard the lead-off track "Song Of Our Country." it's a gil evans tune in orchestral fashion w/ miles like "sketches." will be listening to that later this evening...

PM sent Leeway...

bump. OP is up to date...

cannonball goes 1st on 'All Blues' and coltrane goes 1st on 'Flamenco Sketches.'

'nother good vinyl find today at the store: haven't listened to this in quite some time. still sounds great...

hilarious! thanks for that GA. i needed a good laugh. "Who makes a station with proto-punk and late-'90s jam bands?" said Davis, explaining how an effort to split the difference by playing the MC5 followed by the String Cheese Incident had failed disastrously.

yep. and CJ - i agree on "The Cloister." it's a terrific piece of music, one of my favorite compositons of his, and i think one of his best. i wrote this about it when i reviewed it back in 2005: "...the ending sections of this opening track exemplify what’s so intriguing about many of these compositions. Listening to this tune is like opening a set of Chinese boxes in reverse. Where many writers would be satisfied w/ the large amount of material already covered in this piece, Rosenwinkel keeps writing because it was there to be discovered." [he spoke earlier in the review about feeling like an 'archeologist' when it came to composition - 'discovery'] don't know if you guys checked this out yet, but from the page i linked to in the OP: Ohad Talmor, a saxophonist and gifted composer in his own right, was approached by OJM to arrange two of Rosenwinkel’s pieces, “The Cloister” (from Deep Song) and “Path of the Heart” (from The Next Step). “Ohad was a special case,” says Rosenwinkel, “because he did something completely radical. We met before the session and I told him, ‘Go ahead, make new sections, do whatever you want.’ And he ran with it. His arrangements are like a cubist reorganization of my songs, using what I wrote as RAM. He put it in a bag, shook it up, and saw where it came out.” we will see...

found this at my neighborhood vinyl store while doing laundry today: $5, very good condition. i love, love, love this record. i assume this is obscure to most here, but me and my friends listened to this one a lot when we were at college and it's got sentimental value beyond compare (me and a buddy played the title track as the processional for a mutual college friend's wedding). plus, there's a lot of beautiful piano playing on it!!! i looked for it about a year back at amazon and found that it hadn't been issued at all on cd, so when i saw it today on vinyl i snapped it up. it sounds great.

At your service, sir!

What if it wasn't? I really don't understand the question. it's simple really - if the 1st music you heard had been ellington, then the 1st music you'd have heard would've been ellington. and clearly everything proceeding from that moment would've been very different. or pretty similar. or about half similar but half different. or maybe 65% different. but whatever the case may be, ellington would've been the 1st thing that you'd heard. so there's that. simple really. let us now devolve into an inane pseudo-psychological wankfest about the mind and how early exposure to blah blah blah effects the cognitive blah blah of the true artist's/music appreciator's perception of the blah blah blah.... what i really mean is ellington is 2nd to none in pretty much every single way and everyone knows it.

looks to me like it's got some potential. i'm a big fan of kurt's and love his writing and playing. i kinda wish he had written the arrangements himself but i guess he wanted it otherwise (or probably just didn't have the time to devote to such a project?). anyone interested can read up, order, or just listen to short clips here.

years ago when i was living in nyc, i answered an ad dellarata had put up asking for someone to arrange horn parts for him. i don't remember where i saw the ad. i met him at his relatively fancy highrise west side apartment somewhere around 11th avenue and 30th street. he impressed me as not being too knowledgable about writing for other instruments or arranging in general - ie: not being sure whether trumpets transpose a major 2nd, etc... and that's cool - he's a piano player/singer. not all players have to know that stuff. but i also got the impression he wasn't too sure what he wanted generally from the music even though it was his gig he needed this work done for. so after talking w/ him for about 20-30 minutes i was confident i could do something w/ the lead sheets he'd given me that would work for the gig he had coming up. i left and called him back in a few days to tell him i was done and i wondered what he thought was a fair price for the work. he told me he figured no pay was necessary. i told him he wouldn't be seeing my arrangements. and i agree w/ you big wheel. i didn't care for his music much either. oh well...

What's Made In America? Classic... thread reminded me of this bit. maybe some of you haven't seen it and will enjoy the irony. maybe not.

hey peter. you have a PM... uhhh - i tried to PM you, but i got a pop-up message saying you could not receive messages. oh well...

hey peter. you have a PM...

good one sonny.

It's really too bad that you watch that and have nothing but negative things to say. It is completely your loss. I thought it sounded really good. And in a more natural live context I bet it'd stretch out and be much better even. Tedeschi is a frickin' monster singer (though I personally could do without her guitar playing...). Damn she's great. You can come at this w/ the purist attitude and wish that herbie was still playing classic quintet stuff. And you can come at this w/ the opposite purist attitude and get down on herbie for not constantly playing more "creatively" and pushing some personally idealized envelope. Or you can come at this w/ an open mind and hear this as a funky, soul/blues number played by a bunch of killin' musicians having a great time being fronted by a monster singer. How you look at it is your choice. And this is not to say that everyone has to 'like' this tune or style. Not liking it is fine. But it feels to me that the way you are 'hating' on this tune/performance/herbie here, there's some kind of agenda being pushed instead of just saying "I don't care for the soul/pop thing here." If you don't like it, that's cool. But writing "the whole thing is terrible... SAD!!!... herbie's attempt at a jazz solo." Herbie doesn't attempt a jazz solo. and besides, this wasn't a jazz tune. "attempt?" give that shit a rest.